Supreme Court weighs Alabama appeal in disabled man’s execution

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that could make it harder for convicted murderers to show their lives should be spared because they are intellectually disabled.

The justices are taking up an appeal from Alabama , which wants to put to death a man who lower federal courts found is intellectually disabled and shielded from execution.

The Supreme Court prohibited execution of intellectually disabled people in a landmark ruling in 2002.

Joseph Clifton Smith, 55, has been on death row roughly half his life after his conviction for beating a man to death in 1997.

The issue in Smith's case is what happens when a person has multiple IQ scores that are slightly above 70, which has been widely accepted as a marker of intellectual disability. Smith's five IQ tests pr